


Something Magnificent

by 26stars



Series: AU August 2020 [7]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, Gambler!Daisy, Gen, Homesteader!Jiaying, Hunter!Izzy, Mystic!Raina, Outlaw!Elena, Prodigy!Katya, US Marshal! Bobbi, Veteran!Melinda, Wild West AU, the magnificent seven - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:00:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25764064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/26stars/pseuds/26stars
Summary: Bobbi Morse, an experienced US Marshal, is about to tell the woman asking her help that she doesn't make house calls. Then the woman mentions Malick's name, and Bobbi immediately knows she'll do whatever it takes to help this woman get her town and daughter back. What she needs is an army, but most decent armies are really just seven good men with plenty of cannon fodder around them. For Bobbi, she knows exactly the seven she needs.For AU August Day 7 prompt: Wild West AUCan be read without having seen the film.
Relationships: (past), Bobbi Morse & Raina, Bobbi Morse & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Bobbi Morse & Yo Yo Rodriguez, Bobbi Morse/Skye | Daisy Johnson, Isabelle Hartley & Bobbi Morse, Melinda May & Bobbi Morse, Melinda May & Katya
Series: AU August 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860802
Comments: 14
Kudos: 34
Collections: AOS AU August 2020, Women of the MCU





	Something Magnificent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [unwindmyself](https://archiveofourown.org/users/unwindmyself/gifts), [Shadowcrawler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowcrawler/gifts).



> So, I didn't see too many westerns growing up, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the Magnificent Seven a few years ago. This isn't going too much further in the plot than all the women assembling, but maybe I'll come back and add to it someday.
> 
> Gifted to the masters of MCU-Ladies fics

Bounty hunting was not the life that the parents Morse had wanted for their daughter, of this Bobbi had no doubt. She had disappointed them plenty in her youth, she knew, and so in her eyes, running away the moment she had a horse, a gun, and an opportunity was the merciful thing to do. The Civil War had ended, she he could take care of herself, and even if her mother never stopped worrying about her, she at least had released her family from constant shame (a daughter, twenty-four years old and not married! The horror!). Steady work was nothing to sneeze at, and a US Marshal badge was a golden ticket around the territories.

She was coming out to Missouri because she’d heard some rumors of the outlaw known as the Yo-Yo in the area, and a wanted poster in her pocket told her the reward would be worth the trip and the trouble. She was used to being stared at by strangers—a woman traveling alone in the frontier was exceptional enough, a female US Marshal was unheard of. So when a pair approached her as she re-packed her saddle-bags following a visit to the general store, Bobbi expected little more than curious inquisition.

“You’re a Marshal?” a female voice said over her shoulder. Bobbi pivoted in the dust, hefting the bag onto her shoulder before standing to meet the woman’s eyes.

“I am,” she answered, pointing to her badge. “You got trouble?”

The woman in front of her was of Asian heritage, her dark hair hanging in a long braid over one shoulder. A lanky, curly-haired man was with her, looking nervously around them, but the woman did all the talking.

“A way’s south of here in the Ozarks, there’s a town called Afterlife. A few months ago, a robber baron rode in and put down the deputy, paid of the sheriff, and scared the townsfolk into submission. He’s more or less holding the families hostage while the men work, mining the gold ore that had just been discovered there. He killed my husband and took my daughter as his personal hostage…” The woman trailed off, sounding choked. “I could hardly bear to leave her, but I knew we’d need help to rescue our people. Gordon and I snuck away in the night and have been riding for days, looking for help.”

“This robber-baron have a name?” Bobbi asked, slinging her bags over her horse and strapping them down.

“Malick.”

Bobbi’s hands went still on the buckle. “You’re sure that’s his name?”

“Certain,” the man said, speaking for the first time.

Bobbi turned around and faced the woman again. “We have money,” the woman offered quickly, “but it’s all been acquired by Malick…”

“That’s the least of my worries right now,” Bobbi said, resting her hands on her hips. “I know plenty about the Malick family—I believe every word you’re saying—but Malicks don’t surrender easily. You’re going to need a lot more help than just a US Marshal.”

“I would think you’d know more of that sort than us,” the woman said knowingly, folding her arms. “We’re starting with the law, but we’re open to any help we can get.”

“That’s the right attitude,” Bobbi said with a smirk, turning and mounting her horse. “Where are you staying?”

“Here in the livery stable’s loft,” the woman said, gesturing up the road. “We’re trying to keep a low profile.”

“Good. Don’t leave town. I’ll be back in a few days with the help I can find.”

Bobbi clucked to her horse, guiding him past the couple and towards the road.

“You got a name?” the she asked in a low voice, reaching down to briefly touch the woman’s hand as she passed.

“Jiaying.”

~

Two towns west, Bobbi found Daisy right where she expected—in a bar.

“Bobbi Morse! Well, if you’re frequenting the same establishments as yours truly,” Daisy remarked, her feet up on a table as she idly flipped through a deck of cards, “you’ve either fallen lower than I ever expected of you, or you’re looking for help.”

Bobbi smiled, pushing back a chair with her foot and sitting down with Daisy. “I’ve got an important job, need some help. Need a small army, really.”

“Some sore-loser Confederate state trying to secede again?” Daisy asked, closing the deck into a single stack and setting it in front of Bobbi.

“Malick.”

Daisy’s expression darkened, and she lowered her feet to the floor.

“How many people got so far?”

“You and me.”

Daisy barked out a laugh, leaning back in her chair again.

“And you don’t even have me yet, you know. Not for awhile, if I recall correctly.”

Bobbi smiled, reaching for the top card of the deck. “I’ve got money to make it worth your while.”

She flipped up the Queen of Hearts. Seemed like a sign.

Daisy waved her hand dismissively. “I don’t do money for blood. You got any excitement though?”

“For damn certain.” Bobbi braced the card in her hand. “You still got what it takes to beat it?”

She snapped the card out of her hand and up into the air. Daisy had drawn her gun and shot a hole through the center before it had fluttered to the ground.

“Where do I sign?” Daisy said, holstering her weapon as the other patrons scowled at her and the bartender began yelling about the hole in the wall.

“In your saddle when you follow me out of town.” Bobbi got to her feet, throwing a few dollars at the bartender to pay double for the wall. Before she’d gotten down the main road, Daisy had caught up to her on her own horse.

“Where are we headed first?” Daisy said as their horses fell in step beside each other.

“Triskellion," Bobbi answered. "We need an army, but we’ll start with a Cavalry.”

~

In the next town, they found Melinda sitting on a paddock fence, dark hat low over her brow, watching the pairs of men taking turns dueling in the middle.

“Waiting for your turn?” Bobbi asked, resting her arms on the top fence rail next to Melinda.

“I don’t do guns anymore,” Melinda reminded her tiredly.

“Well, it’s never too late to get back on the horse. I know you consider yourself retired, but I just found out where Malick has slithered out of his den.”

Melinda was silent, watching as a pair rotated out and a little waif of a person took a spot on one side of the paddock. The men watching immediately started placing bets on the child’s opponent, dismissing the kid out of hand.

“So that’s the girl?” Bobbi guessed, glancing at Melinda, who nodded.

“That’s her.”

The girl’s opponent taunted the child by calling her ‘boy’, but he wasn’t laughing when the girl felled him before he’d even drawn his gun. The crowd went silent, shocked, and the girl tipped her hat at them, revealing her ponytail, before making her way over and climbing out of the paddock. Melinda had already hopped down and was walking around with her hat out, accepting the money that had been bet against the girl.

“I’m not in the habit of paying cheaters,” one man muttered, spitting at May’s feet. “I’ll be keeping my money.”

“Uh, don’t mind him, Miss May,” the man’s friend said quickly, elbowing him. “He’s just drunk.”

The first man’s demeanor changed immediately. “I’m sorry Miss May, if I’d known I was talking to the Cavalry…I meant no disrespect...”

“That’s all right,” May said calmly, staring him down. “You can just pay me double.”

The man immediately dropped his money in her hat and shuffled away quickly, and Melinda was still folding the bills when she returned to Bobbi’s side where the young girl was waiting silently for her, eyeing Bobbi and Daisy suspiciously.

“Katya,” she said, drawing the child’s attention. “This is Bobbi. That’s Daisy. They’ve got a job we’re going to help them with.”

~

The next day, they rode out of town to a place where the infamous Yo-Yo was rumored to be spotted lately. They found a cabin up on the hills with a few booby-traps around it, so Bobbi first went in alone.

She had sliced another booby-trap lasso in half already when Yo-Yo revealed herself from the back room, two guns trained on Bobbi.

“Got a right to protect my house from intruders,” the woman murmured, but Bobbi took it as a good sign that she hadn’t fired a shot yet.

“Yeah, well I’ve got a poster with your face on it,” Bobbi said calmly, slowly reaching for the paper in her front pocket. Yo-Yo jerked her guns distrustfully, but she allowed Bobbi to unfold the paper and turn it to face her.

At the sight of her “likeness”, the woman rolled her eyes. “Doesn’t anyone know how to draw?”

“So you are the same one then? The one who robbed a troop of rangers out in the desert and left them for dead?”

Yo-Yo’s eyes flashed. “Maybe they had it coming, corrupt sacks of shit they were.”

Bobbi shrugs, tossing the paper at the other woman’s feet. “Doesn’t matter to me whether they had it coming or not—you’ve got a price on your head.”

The number 500 screamed up at them from the floor.

“So you intend to bring me in and get the reward?” Yo-Yo said, stepping closer, but Bobbi shook her head.

“No, I’ve got a business proposition for you.”

She gave her the bare bones of the plan, and the outlaw seemed intrigued.

“And after business is concluded?” she prompted, still keeping her guns on Bobbi.

“There will still be plenty of lawmen after you,” Bobbi admitted, “but I won’t be one of them. And I won’t be talking.”

Yo-Yo considered it for a moment, then slowly tipped her guns back.

“If I survive, you mean,” she said as Bobbi picked up and re-folded the Wanted poster and slipped it back into her pocket.

“Sure. If any of us do.”

~

Izzy, predictably, was the hardest to track down, but like Elena (Yo-Yo’s real name), she tended to leave rumors in her wake. Pointed fingers and nervous expressions sent the five of them to the mountains, where they eventually found a shack in the woods in the process of being raided by a pair of wannabe-heroes.

“Don’t suppose you know where Izzy Hartley is?” Bobbi called from her horse, ignoring the man pointing a gun at her—she could see that both Daisy and Elena already have their guns on him.

“That woman’s dead—we took care of that this morning,” one of the men said, venturing out onto the porch. He held up a rifle proudly. “See? We stole her gun.”

“How’d you manage that?” Bobbi deadpanned, already trying to work it out herself.

_Izzy? Taken out by these pathetic specimens? That doesn’t add up…_

“We surprised her when she was out checking her traps and—”

The man never finished his story—a knife literally cut him off. He fell dead on the porch, the rifle going off once and blowing a hole in the porch roof, and all of them spun in the direction the knife was thrown from while also trying to calm their spooked horses.

Out of the woods came a dark shape covered in pelts, barreling towards them with the speed and presence of a bear. The other man had already turned and run back into the house, possibly for protection and possibly for a weapon, and Bobbi signaled to her team to stand down while the animal-person charged into the house with a roar.

There was about a minute of noise on the other side, and Bobbi waited with a smirk on her face until things got quiet.

When Izzy finally came out alone a moment later, the first thing she did was pluck her rifle from the dead man’s hands.

“These two fuckers shot my horse this morning,” she growled, addressing all of them. “It threw me before it died, and I ended up going off a cliff. Course they thought I was dead at the bottom, didn’t even bother to climb down and make killing them easy on me…”

“Well, you’ve gotten your property back, and now you’ve got two horses,” Bobbi noted, nodding towards the fence where the two robbers’ horses are tied. “So I reckon you’re square.”

“No thanks to you, big-shot Marshal,” Izzy said, wiping down her gun and reloading it. “You have anything useful to tell me, or can I send you off without hospitality already?”

“Well, I know you’ve been out of work awhile—you need some income?” Bobbi offered.

Izzy shrugged. “You got any food?”

~

Bobbi rendezvoused with Jiaying back in the little town, the five other women riding in file behind her. Jiaying and her companion seemed less than impressed with the size of the group, but once Bobbi explained her plan, the two of them at least acted a little more optimistic. They stocked up on provisions for the journey and set out after dusk that night, making their way out of town to find a private place in the hills to camp. They found a clearing in the woods to better conceal their fire and set up camp, and Bobbi got to work cooking a decent meal for the group. The ragtag bunch women swapped stories around the fire as they ate, and Gordon seemed rather embarrassed to be sitting with a company entirely of women while they all gossiped, but in the middle of their after-dark meal, he suddenly leapt to his feet.

“Someone’s coming.”

Guns were out immediately, though nobody was really sure where to point them, or how he’d seen something none of the rest of them can. Gordon was staring into the darkness in the direction they’d be traveling the next day, and after a moment, a female voice called to them from the shadows.

“It’s all right, I’m looking for Bobbi Morse. I’m here to help.”

A woman slowly came into view, her empty hands up as she slipped through the trees towards their camp.

“You’re headed to Afterlife,” she said, not a question. “I’m going with you.”

“Who sent you?” Bobbi demanded, still keeping her gunsights on the stranger. Olive skin, dark curly hair—she had no idea who she was.

“No one sent me,” the woman said coolly, stopping just out of Bobbi’s reach. “I saw you coming.”

“You live up there?” Jiaying said around her rifle, which she had yet to lower.

“I don’t really live anywhere,” the woman said, folding her arms casually. “But I see everything. And I know my destiny—I’m supposed to go with you.”

“Who do you think you are?” Daisy muttered disbelievingly. “Some fortune teller?”

“Only when people are paying,” the woman said with a smile, sitting down on one of the saddles resting nearby. “My name is Raina. And I think I can be of service to your mission. You’re after Malick, after all.”

Bobbi looked over at Jiaying, who seemed equally confused, but she was also lowering her rifle. “What services do you think you can offer?”

Raina cocked her head. “I found you all, didn’t I? There’s more where that came from. And after all, seven’s a lucky number.”

Jiaying finally lowered her rifle, reaching into the fire and fishing out the skillet to offer some food to Raina. “I don’t want to be counting on luck. But seven of anything is usually better than six.”

Raina smiled, remaining unmoving as the women gradually lowered their own weapons in turn, and once everyone but Elena had sat down again, Raina spread out her small hands.

“You didn’t even consider calling in more marshals,” she said, looking at Bobbi. “You figure Malick doesn’t play by the rules, then neither will you. A gambler, a veteran, a prodigy, an outlaw, a hunter, and a lawman leading them—all you need now is a mystic, and you’ve got yourself a fine start to a circus.”

Unsettled by the accuracy of Raina’s words but refusing to show it, Bobbi narrowed her eyes. “And just what else do you know about what I have planned?”

Raina smiled, her eyes glinting gold in the firelight. “Most importantly, I know it’s going to work. It’s going to be magnificent.”


End file.
